Sacrifice of Love (32 page)

“Fane!” Vasile shouted. “Enough! We are all just as frustrated as you are, but this,” he motioned up and down to his son, “is not helping.”

Fane met his father’s gaze for a count of three heartbeats but then dropped it. He bowed his head as he leaned back against the wall. His shoulders were tense and his fists were clenched at his sides, but he managed to pull himself under control, barely. Vasile gave him a stern look before looking at Alston.

“Did that help at all?” he asked the fae in regards to his questions about the two faces and one soul.

Alston rubbed his chin absently as he considered Vasile’s words. “Maybe,” he answered. He looked at Peri and then said, “I need you to come with me.”

“Where?” “Why?” Peri and Vasile asked at the same time.

“I have a hunch, but before I say it out loud I need to verify it,” he explained.

Peri shook her head. “Wait a minute. You think this place is something that is so evil you aren’t even willing to speak of it out loud?”

“I don’t know, Perizada. That is why I need you to come with me.” He turned back to Vasile. “We will be quick.”

Vasile’s jaw tensed but he nodded at watched as the two fae disappeared.

“What do you know that you don’t want the wolves to know?” Peri asked as soon as she and Alston arrived in the room of the high fae council. “Not to mention the fact that you don’t want to speak with the other members of the council about it.”

“You know as well as I do, Peri, that some things should not be spoken about. And when they must, it should be with as few ears listening as possible.”

Peri waited as he walked over to a large door, one that wasn’t opened very often. Her eyes widened as he pressed his palm to the door and muttered words only the high fae knew. The door vanished. Alston turned back to look at her; his eyes were wide with fear. Peri had only seen Alston fearful a handful of times in their long lives, and she had to say, it wasn’t a good look on him.

“We need to remember,” he told her.

Peri frowned. “Remember what?”

“To know me is impossible, unless the wall is destroyed.” The words of the riddle flowed from his lips and seemed to reverberate off the walls.

“You think the wall being destroyed is figurative?” Peri asked.

Alston nodded. “The words have been haunting me since I heard them, chipping away at my mind, almost like trying to scratch an itch I can’t reach.”

“And you decided the appropriate back scratcher is in our records?” she asked him only half joking.

Alston frowned. “You’ve gotten cranky in your old age.”

“First off, I’m not old. And second, I have always been cranky. Now what wall is it that you think needs to be figuratively destroyed?”

He tapped his head. “A wall we ourselves devised and built.”

“No way,” Peri’s voice lowered as though someone might hear, though they were the only ones in the room. “You think the riddle is referring to a block we put up?”

“Yes. I’m actually pretty positive.”

“How?”

“I wrote the spell that those exact words are in, the spell that we all cast and weren’t ever supposed to remember.”

“I told you that memory spells are never a good idea,” she scolded. “They always come back to bite you on the ass. This time it just happens to be in the form of an unhinged warlock.”

“What do you think he knows?” Fane asked Decebel.

“Who knows? The fae are as notorious for their secrets as they are for their power. All I care about is that, whatever it is, it will get us where we need to be. He had better decide to share.”

Fane’s eyes narrowed. “Peri wouldn’t allow him to keep anything from us that would help us find our mates.”

Decebel shrugged. “I would like to think not. But right now all I can really think about is Jennifer and how she needs me and…,” Decebel bit back a snarl of frustration.

“And you need her,” Fane finished for him. “We will get them back Decebel. If we have to tear every realm apart in order to do so, we will get them back.”

“I agree with young blood,” Costin said as he walked over to the corner that Fane and Decebel occupied. “The world may wind up being drenched in blood, but we will find our females, and anyone in our way will die.”

“Who are we killing?” Adam asked as he tossed on of his knives over and over in the air.

“No one,” Vasile growled and at the same time Decebel snarled, “everyone.”

Adam looked between the two Alphas. “Does that mean I get to kill half as many as planned, or twice as many?”

“Anything?” Peri asked Alston again.

“I told you that as soon as I found it I would tell you.”

“Well time is growing short,” she huffed. “The hunt begins in two hours. How will you know you have found it if you don’t remember what it is you’re looking for?”

“I’m not certain, but I think that there was sort of a key in the spell itself so that once a person started remembering bits and pieces of what it is they were supposed to forget, all of it would come back to them, given the correct trigger.”

“I’m guessing you’re not talking about the kind of trigger I could pull,” she said dryly.

“You know exactly what kind of trigger I’m talking about.” Alston looked up from the book in his hands and peered at Peri thoughtfully. “You really do care about these girls, don’t you?”

She shrugged non-committedly. “They’re like a fungus; they grow on you.”

“Yes, but a fungus is something you try to get rid of, not something you rescue when it’s been taken.”

“If it’s a mushroom and you really like mushrooms, then it most certainly is something you would try to get back.”

“Whatever you say Peri,” he told her as he started flipping through the book again.

Several minutes passed in relative silence as Alston searched books and Peri stood wondering what it could have been that they had blocked from everyone’s memories, including their own. What could have been so horrible that they didn’t want anyone in any species to remember?

“The dark forest.” Alston’s words couldn’t have struck any deeper if they had been attached to a harpoon and shot straight into Peri’s soul.

“What did you say?” she asked. Though her voice sounded calm, she was anything but.

“The dark forest: Volcan, witches, wolves, death.” Alston’s words seemed to ring loudly in the quiet, still room.

Peri stumbled and caught herself on the wall. “Holy hell,” she muttered.

“We need to hurry,” Alston stood up, not bothering to put any of the books back on the shelves. He started to push past Peri and when he noticed that she wasn’t following, he turned and looked back at her. “Peri, we need to hurry; we need to get Vasile and the wolves to the dark forest.”

Peri’s eyes had grown large and held the haunted look in them of someone who had seen too many shadows in their life. “When he remembers, he is, he will…” When her eyes met Alston’s they were wet with unshed tears.

Alston nodded. “He will hurt, and the wound will feel brand new.”

“Why does this seem too easy?” Jacque asked Alina as she walked slowly around the forest where Lorelle had dropped them, literally, on their asses. Alina had let an uncharacteristic cuss word slip, causing Jacque to laugh, which earned her yet another cuss word.

“Because it is,” Alina answered. “Lorelle is fae; she will have something up her sleeve.”

“Magic?” Jacque asked.

“Exactly. Vasile will not underestimate her,” Alina spoke confidently of her mate.

Jacque wished she shared that confidence, but all she could think was that by the time the males found them, they would be frantic and probably not thinking very clearly. But instead of pointing that out she asked a question, “Do you think the others are in similar situations?”

“Probably,” she answered. “He’s set this up as a hunt, so he isn’t going to want them giving away their location by crying out in pain,” she paused thoughtfully then finished. “Then again, he could have some spell keeping any noise from escaping.”

“That’s not helping, Alina,” Jacque growled.

“Then let’s just go with their situations are probably the same.”

“Sally,” Crina’s voice broke through the fog covered air, “are you okay?”

“I’m good,” Sally answered as she stood from the ground and brushed the dirt from her palms where she had caught herself after being tossed by Lorelle. “How about you?" Sally asked.

“Say something again.”

“Something again?” Sally’s words came out as a question as she waited for Crina’s response. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand close around her shoulder. “Bloody hell, Crina.” Sally grasped at her chest and swallowed down the scream that had nearly clawed its way out of her throat. “Give a girl warning before you just reach out of the fog and grab her okay?”

Crina’s face emerged from the haze and frowned. “I told you to say something so that I would know where you were since I couldn’t see you.”

“But you didn’t say, 'hey Sally, I’m going to grab your arm and scare the crap out of you',” Sally pointed out.

“Okay, next time I will make sure to tell you that I am going to scare the crap out of you.” Crina smiled a toothy wolf smile.